


There’s No Tackling in Baseball

by LokiOfSassgaard



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Avenger Loki (Marvel), Baseball, Fluff, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:08:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28381473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LokiOfSassgaard/pseuds/LokiOfSassgaard
Summary: There’s an empty field next to SHIELD HQ, which is perfect for casual sports.  Eager to get back into the swing of familiarity, Steve goes out to practise his swing  Somehow, he convinces Loki to try it too.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 27





	There’s No Tackling in Baseball

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what this is. I found it in my Scrivener file, and it’s apparently very old. I’m really not sure what I was going for with it, except the same sort of attitude as whatever was going in the fic where Loki learns what Christmas is.
> 
> Anyway. Here’s something kind of dumb and silly. And since I never uploaded it, I figured I’d share.

Nobody played stickball anymore. Of all the things the 21st century had changed; all the foreign, alien things Americans now took for granted, the absence of small groups of boys in the streets with broom handles and rubber balls was perhaps the most jarring. They played other games, of course. But it had been almost a year since waking up in a sterile room, and he hadn’t seen a single pick-up game of stickball played anywhere.

He was twelve the summer he broke his wrist. He hadn’t even been running that fast, he thought, but when he tripped over the kerb, he was going fast enough that he could feel something snap when he hit the ground.

After that, his mother had forbidden him to play.

Steve Rogers had not pitched a ball or ran to second base since 1930.

Baseball was still alive and kicking, and when he saw the postings for the league sign-ups, Steve barely hesitated to put his name down. It wasn’t until he walked away that he even thought to consider whether or not he might be out of practise.

The SHIELD facility sat adjacent to JFK, sharing part of the runway space. When whoever was responsible for buying up the land for various government facilities came to the New York SHIELD offices, they apparently got a bit carried away with the amount of land they thought would be appropriate. The end result was an imposing, labyrinthine facility with about ten acres of empty lot off to one side. It was a well-guarded, fortified empty lot, but an empty lot all the same. Eventually, someone brought in a set of cheap, rubber bases, and over time pick-up games became intra-departmental affairs every spring and summer. It was out here that Steve brought a milk crate full of baseballs and an old Louisville Slugger to home plate. He took a ball from the crate and held it for a few moments, turning it over in his fingers, taking in the roughness of the stitches. Sixty-eight years, he reflected. Sixty-eight years of elections, of war, of peace. Sixty-eight years of friends’ birthdays and funerals. Sixty-eight years of a nation constantly rebuilding itself again and again, picking itself up and wiping away the dust after each stumble. Sixty-eight years, and Steve had missed every single one of them.

He threw the ball high above his head, gripped the bat in both hands, and swung. The bat cracked against the leather-wrapped rubber ball so hard he could feel it in his joints. He looked up to see the ball soaring far off to the left and quickly out of sight. Home run, for sure. Somehow, it didn’t make him feel any better.

Steve picked up another ball from his crate, and before he could think about it, tossed it into the air and swung at it. Again, it veered off to the left. He was already shaping up to be a fairly predictable hitter. He’d just have to keep hitting balls until they went where he wanted them. He picked another one up from the crate and set out to get the kink out of his swing.

“What are you doing?”

Steve didn’t bother to turn round. He just threw the ball up and swung. This time, the ball went a bit closer to centre field.

“You’ve been warned about that sneaking up on people,” he said simply. “You’ll get yourself shot again if you keep that up. They’ve probably got snipers along the perimeter.”

Loki shrugged lazily as he stepped into Steve’s line of sight. Whether Loki simply didn’t understand casual attire, or just had something against the T-shirt and jeans look, Steve wasn’t sure, but he always felt somehow under-dressed when he was around Loki. At least he wasn’t wearing a tie this time.

“You never did answer my question,” Loki said. He peered down into the crate of baseballs and frowned almost disapprovingly.

“I’m working on my swing. It’s surprisingly tricky when you’re used to using a broom handle,” Steve answered, reaching in for another ball. “I figure joining the team’ll give me something to do around here.” He threw the ball up into the air and swung at it, this time driving a perfect centre line.

Loki raised his eyebrows questioningly. It was a look he gave often enough that he no longer had to even accompany it with a reminder that he was not of this world.

“Baseball,” said Steve. He tossed one of the balls to Loki and pointed the bat toward the pitcher’s mound. “You might surprise yourself.”

Loki looked down at the ball in his hand and frowned at it. Then he looked to the pitcher’s mound and frowned at that as well.

“You don’t have to,” Steve said. “I’ve just seen how you throw those knives. You’d probably make a pretty good pitcher.”

After a few moments longer, Loki took off his jacket and put it on the grass before making his way over to the mound. It didn’t take a genius to work out what Steve wanted him to do, but he wasn’t entirely sure what the point of it was. The humans in whose company he’d found himself had a strange way of explaining themselves without explaining anything at all.

Standing on the mound, Loki tested the ball’s weight in his hand. It wasn’t anything like a knife, but he was sure he’d be able to his his target all the same. He tossed the ball into the air a few times, and when he was certain he’d be able to throw it properly, he twisted his back and threw it as he would one of his knives, with all the power and force he’d normally use. Steve hardly made an attempt to block it at all, and was struck hard in the side by it. He cried out and took a step forward, pointing the bat at Loki.

“No,” he said forcefully. “You don’t hit me. You do that, and I walk. You don’t want me to walk.”

Loki shrugged impatiently. He wasn’t exactly in the mood to read minds, and when he did, the humans tended to get irritated with him.

“Then what would you have me do?” he asked.

Steve inhaled deeply, reminding himself that Loki had an even smaller frame of reference than he did on most matters. Perhaps likening pitching to throwing knives hadn’t been the wisest of ideas.

“You want to throw it so I can’t hit it,” Steve said.

Loki looked around the open field, not quite seeing the difficulty in what Steve described. This time, Steve caught the misunderstanding before Loki had the chance to lob a ball in the wrong direction.

“Okay. Baseball. Four bases,” said Steve. “This one I’m standing on is home plate. The pitcher throws the ball over the home plate. If it’s too far off to one side, that’s a mark against you. If you can throw it over home without me hitting it, that’s a strike, and a mark against me. Do that three times, and I get replaced with another guy. Do that to three guys on the same team, and you switch sides.”

“And what are the teams?” Loki asked. Now that it was being properly explained, it seemed rather more complicated than he’d initially thought.

“There are nine guys on a team,” Steve explained. “There’s the pitcher — you — and then the position players.” He started pointing to each of the positions on the field. “Catcher, a guy on each base, a guy between second and third, and three in the outfield. The batter — me — is on the other team. When three batters get struck out, the other team takes the positions, and the guys who were on the field get ready to bat.”

Loki looked around the field, still feeling like he was miles behind Steve in what they were doing. “And is there a point to all this?”

“If the batter hits the ball, he runs to first base, there,” Steve said, pointing. “Whenever the ball’s in play, he can keep running until he gets back to the home plate, here. But if someone on your team catches the ball, if he’s not on a base, he’s out and has to go sit back down.

“There’s a little bit more to it than that, but the team with the most amount of players to get back to home wins.” He picked up another ball and threw it to Loki. “All you gotta worry about right now is throwing it for me.”

Loki looked around the field once more, then back at Steve. Throw the ball in such a way that Steve couldn’t hit it — not a terribly difficult prospect, he didn’t think. He twisted his back and threw the ball at Steve again, throwing it high above home plate. If not for the almost indecently smug grin Loki wore, Steve would have corrected him.

“Okay, no,” he said, throwing Loki another ball. “Cooperate with me, and I’ll take you to see a game. I’ll buy you ice cream and everything.” He knew he was being patronising, but he also knew Loki was at least in part being deliberately difficult. Often times, bribery was the only thing that worked. And though he didn’t understand why, some part of him wanted to see Loki succeed at this. Maybe giving him something to do would distract him from trying to steal Fury’s eye patch.

He got ready to swing again, and Loki wound up to pitch again. This time, he threw the ball roughly over home plate, and then some. Steve barely had time to register that the ball had been thrown at all, and when he swung, he hit nothing but air. At first, he thought Loki had pulled some other trick on him, but when he looked back, he saw the ball rolling to a stop in the grass behind him.

“Wow,” he said, genuinely impressed. “Do that again.”

He tossed another ball to Loki, and got ready to swing. This time when Loki threw it, Steve watched the ball all but disappear from Loki’s hand. He thought he could hear it zooming past his head, but he wasn’t sure if it was his imagination or actually a rather startling near-death experience with a baseball and a Norse god.

“We gotta clock that,” Steve said. “You should sign up for the team. You’d be unhittable.”

“And that’s a good thing,” Loki surmised.

“That’s a great thing,” Steve said. “Now why don’t you dial that back a bit so I can get some practise in?” He tossed another ball to Loki, taking a small amount of satisfaction in the pleased grin Loki let slip as he caught the ball.

* * *

The first home game of the season was against Philadelphia, and true to his word, Steve bought tickets as soon as he was able. He borrowed one of Tony’s cars (”Take the Audi,” Tony had said, eyeing Loki suspiciously. “It’ll be the easiest to replace.”) and made sure to get Loki out of HQ with plenty of time to reach the stadium. Their seats were just behind the foul line, right between home plate and first base. Almost as soon as they sat down, Loki pulled out his Starkphone and started fiddling with it.

“I’m gonna go get us that ice cream,” Steve said as he put his coat down on his seat. “Please try to still be here when I get back.”

“If you insist,” said Loki, not looking up from his phone.

Steve warily took that as a promise to stay put and walked off to find the concessions.

Loki had kept his seat, and in fact looked as if he hadn’t moved an inch by the time Steve got back. Rather than ice cream, he handed Loki a bag of popcorn.

“We’ll stop on the way back. Sorry,” he said. “I thought they’d have some here.”

Loki looked up long enough to take the popcorn. “It’s fine,” he said dismissively.

“Well, I’d built it up so much, I was sort of wanting some myself,” Steve admitted with a self-conscious laugh. 

They settled into an awkward silence, Steve surveying the stadium and Loki still engrossed with his phone. Eventually, the national anthem was sang and the game started, and Steve almost forgot that Loki had apparently permanently glued himself to his phone.

“Your explanation of this game was extremely simplified,” Loki said at the bottom of the fourth inning. He was still looking down at his phone, barely flicking so much as a glance up to the game in front of them. “You mentioned nothing of ground rules, or the difference between fair and foul balls.”

Steve leaned over to look at Loki’s phone, finding him reading some sort of page or book on the subject.

“If the ball hits that bit there—” Loki pointed to the Pepsi sign over right field “—it’s apparently a home run.”

Steve looked out at the sign. “Huh. Really?”

“That’s what it said on the page I was on earlier,” Loki said. 

He finally slid his phone back into his pocket and sat up to watch the game properly.

“He’s having problems with his shoulder,” Loki said, pointing at the Mets’ pitcher. “If the coach is smart, he’ll switch out for Francisco, and win five-to-two. I don’t think he will, though.”

Steve threw a dubious look in Loki’s direction.

“You picked up all that from your phone, did you?” he asked.

Loki grinned slyly. “In a manner of speaking, yes,” he said. “In that Stark is also watching the game from home and apparently knows how these things work. I have fifty dollars on the other team.”

Steve considered this for a moment and leaned back in his seat, satisfied with the answer. “Put me down for ten on Philly,” he said.

Still grinning, Loki pulled out his phone again.

* * *

On the way back to HQ, they stopped into Baskin Robbins for enough ice cream to give a polar bear brain freeze. Tony was basically paying for it, so neither of them saw any shame in trying all 31 flavours.

* * *

There were no tryouts held, in the aim of inclusiveness. Each department was allotted a time during which to practise out on the field, and field operations were meeting bright and early Saturday morning. At some point, a row of collapsible bleachers had been set up so anybody still milling about didn’t have to stand.

Having been convinced by Steve to at least give the team a try, Loki wandered out to the field at the appointed time and waited for someone to tell him what to do. He soon spotted Natasha at the top of the bleachers, and with a grin, made his way over to her. As soon as he put his weight on the bottom step of the bleachers, it became immediately clear that they would not support his weight. At the first uneasy sound beneath his feet, Loki all but leapt off. He cast around for Thor, finding him about to make the same mistake.

“Brother, no!” Loki called out to him.

Thor turned to look at Loki, with confusion written deeply on his brow.

“Folding chairs,” Loki said as he sat on the grass.

Thor backed away quickly and went instead to sit beside Loki on the ground. He wore the same dejected, hurt look he always wore when he did not get his way.

“Everything on this realm is so flimsy,” he complained. “Can they not make stronger items.”

Loki rolled his eyes and straightened his posture. “You weigh four times as much as they do,” he reminded Thor. “What do you expect?”

He closed his eyes and grinned, and Thor couldn’t help but look around to see where Loki had sent his double this time. Thor found his false image at the top of the bleachers, whispering something at Natasha. She rolled her eyes and sighed as she picked up a small pebble from the seat and threw it down at Loki. It struck the back of his head and he turned to offer her a dramatic shrug.

“Loki, be nice,” Thor scolded.

Loki’s shade disappeared from Natasha’s side as the proper Loki leaned back against the bleachers. “I’m always nice,” he insisted easily.

When it seemed like everyone who was planning on joining the team had arrived, Sitwell called the group to home plate. As the team gathered around, Natasha stepped up next to Loki and leaned in close.

“You’d have better luck in the locker room,” she said.

Loki was just about to remind her that he wasn’t allowed in the women’s locker room, under penalty of a taser to the face, when he caught the hint of a sly smile on her face.

“I’ll be sure to take plenty of photographs,” he promised her.

Natasha schooled her grin into something more neutral as Sitwell gave a quick inspection to his team. There were a lot of new faces, but somehow he didn’t think it would be difficult to build up good stats for the year.

“You two know what we’re doing here, right?” he asked Thor and Loki.

“This is the game with the sticks and the ice, yes?” Loki asked, pretending to be giving the matter a good think.

“Right,” Sitwell said flatly, never knowing when to take Loki at face value. The answer seemed increasingly like to be ‘never.’ He turned his attention to Thor instead. “What about you?” he asked.

“Not at all,” Thor admitted cheerfully. “I am here on my brother’s suggestion, but am eager to learn.”

“Right,” Sitwell repeated. He reconsidered his original opinion on doing well this year. “Well, there’s no ice. Or sticks. We’ve got bats and balls, and two weeks until the first game. So let’s stop wasting time and get to work.”

He opened a large chest and started pulling items from it, passing them around to the team. Everyone got a glove and a bat, and he set aside an additional set of padding and a larger, heavier glove than those he’d passed out. 

“We don’t have a lot of time, so we’re just gonna get right into it,” Sitwell said. He counted off the members of the group, finding just enough people to divide into teams and have most positions fielded. “Two teams. Divide up. I don’t care how you do it.”

Tony looked around the group, realising a fatal flaw in Sitwell’s instructions. “Let’s not have two gods on the same team,” he suggested. “Or if we do, I get to be on their team.”

Loki nudged Thor over in Tony’s direction and went to stand next to Steve, who was already getting into the catcher’s gear.

“That’s a bit presumptuous, don’t you think?” Loki asked, watching him.

Steve paused briefly and offered him the mask. “Do you want to catch?” he asked.

“No.” Loki looked at the rest of their team as it formed around them. Clint, Natasha, Coulson, Wilson, and Dean. He was a bit surprised to see Coulson there at all, but since Sitwell was apparently the team captain, he supposed it made sense that they’d both play. Coulson probably saw the whole thing as some sort of team-building exercise.

“We’ll field,” Steve told Sitwell. “Loki’s got one hell of a pitch. It’ll be useful for batting practise, I think.”

Sitwell gave Loki a curious look. “Really?” he asked.

Loki only shrugged.

“Well, take your positions,” Sitwell said.

As he went off to organise his team, Coulson began discussing positions with theirs. Before Loki could wander over to the pitcher’s mound, Steve grabbed his elbow and held him back.

“Really dial it back today, all right?” Steve asked quietly. “That fastball of yours could probably kill a guy if you’re not careful.”

Loki sighed, put out. “I promise not to kill anyone with a baseball,” he said.

Satisfied with this response, Steve nodded. He let go of Loki’s arm and finished getting suited up to stand right in Loki’s firing line. Once ready, he picked up a ball from Sitwell’s truck, and after pushing the trunk far out of the way, tossed the ball to Loki. Loki caught it out of the air and tossed it back almost immediately.

“Wear the glove,” Steve said, nodding to the monstrous leather glove Loki held. “You’ll want to get used to catching with it.”

“I catch just fine without it,” Loki reasoned.

Steve held onto the ball and waited until Loki finally put the glove on. It was heavy and awkward and didn’t move in any reasonable way. He wasn’t sure how he was meant to hold anything at all with it, let alone catch something flying at his head. 

“I don’t like it,” he said.

Steve threw him the ball anyway. “That’s why you need to get used to it.”

They tossed the ball back and forth a few more times, Loki getting used to both catching with the absurdly large glove and throwing overhand like he was apparently meant to in this game. It was nothing at all like throwing a knife, and while he’d engaged in ball games in the past, it had not been since he was a child. He’d long since had all the bad habits formed by childhood games pounded out of him from years of weapons training.

The new throw, while not difficult, was still uncomfortable.

Finally, Sitwell’s team was as organised as it was going to get, and lined up on the bleachers. Tony came up to bat first, wearing a backwards Yankees cap and swinging the bat in exaggerated circles. As he stepped up to the plate, he pointed the bat straight at Loki’s head.

“Right there. That’s where I’m putting it,” he said with more cocky swagger than a rooster in the hen house.

Before Tony was even ready, Loki threw the ball at him, hitting him in the side of the head.

“Motherfucker!” Tony shouted, dropping the bat and clutching his head with both hands. “You son of a bitch.”

Steve immediately sprang up to make sure Tony wasn’t about to bleed to death on the grass and shot Loki a venomous look.

“I’m sorry. Is that not allowed?” Loki asked innocently.

He knew damn well that it wasn’t, and Steve knew it.

“You all right?” Steve asked, trying to take off Tony’s hat to get a look.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Tony said, brushing him off. “Wasn’t even that hard. Just surprised me is all.”

Steve shook his head and stepped back. “Take your base,” he said, waving vaguely to first.

As Tony trudged along to first, Sitwell walked up to the plate. “Do that again, and you’re off the team,” he warned.

Loki didn’t even deign to respond. Instead, he struck Sitwell out with so much force, Steve thought his hand would be bruised for a week from the impact of the ball against his glove.

Clint stood at home plate, blowing kisses to Tony in between pitches. He had two strikes against him, and Tony was sure he could make it three. He wound up for the swing and lobbed the ball at Clint, surprised to hear the crack of ash and leather. Clint dropped the bat and ran to first, and Steve ran from second to third. The only thing between him and third base was Thor, but the ball was nowhere near either of them. Thor did not seem to care. As soon as Steve was close enough, Thor tackled him, shoving him into the hard dirt around the base.

“Did you just tackle him?” Sitwell shouted from across the diamond from where he was manning first. “You can’t tackle him! There’s no tackling in baseball!”

Thor’s exuberant grin waned as he got up to let Steve to his feet.

“You said to guard this base,” Thor said. “That is what I did.”

Sitwell covered his face with both hands. He was probably smudging his glasses, but he didn’t care. “If you don’t have the ball, he’s allowed to reach the base,” he explained slowly, as if to a small child. “Your job is to catch the ball when someone throws it to you.”

Thor nodded. “I see.”

“Do you?” Sitwell asked, already tired despite only being on the field for less than half an hour.

“Yes,” Thor said earnestly. “Only when I have the ball may I guard the base.”

“Yes. Exactly,” Sitwell agreed. He felt like something was still off, but he didn’t have the energy to go through every point of the conversation again. Instead, he turned back toward the rest of the group and called for the next batter.

Coulson came up to bat next, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else. He didn’t test the weight of the bat or give anything in the way of heckling to Tony.

“Why don’t you just go sit back down,” Tony suggested. “I’ll save you the effort of being struck out.”

“Throw the ball, Stark,” Coulson said levelly.

Tony shrugged and threw the ball. Rather than swinging, he held the bat out and bunted the ball, sending it skittering about the infield. Tony leapt for it as Steve reached home plate, and threw it to Thor as Clint rounded second and made his way toward third. In one swift movement, Thor caught the ball and tackled Clint to the ground.

Sitwell covered his face again as the rest of the group laughed. Even Clint grinned widely as he picked himself up from the ground and dusted himself off.

“Good tackle,” he said. “You just about managed not to completely crush me.”

While everyone else cleared out as soon as tactical response started to crowd around the bleachers, Steve stayed behind to make sure everything was gathered and put back in the trunk. Sitwell walked along the bleachers, picking up all the forgotten gloves and bats. He brought them over to the trunk and dropped them in half-heartedly.

“Amateurs, man,” he said. “Would it be wrong to switch departments so I could be on a good team?”

Steve was fairly certain Sitwell wasn’t serious, but he’d quickly learned that he was working with one of the most sarcastic groups of people in New York. And that was saying something.

“We’re not that bad,” Steve said as he put the catcher’s gear away. “Tony and Loki both have great arms. If we work on getting them both to focus, we could be unhittable.”

Sitwell snorted. “Loki. Right. Who told him to sign up anyway? I can’t stand that creep.”

Steve sighed. “That would be me,” he said stiffly. “I thought it would be good for him to have something to do. Him and his brother. I know he’s bad with authority, but look at where they come from.”

Sitwell looked up at him blankly, and Steve could tell that he wasn’t convinced.

“Loki knows what he’s doing for the most part. I know he can get a little bratty sometimes, but I promise we’ll work on that,” Steve said. “We’re going to a game this weekend and taking Thor with us so he can see how it’s done too. These guys both pick things up really quickly. They’re not from around here. Give ‘em a chance to learn this stuff.”

“I decide who stays and who goes,” Sitwell said after a brief moment. “As long as they quit trying to kill people, they can stay. But it’s my call.”

Steve nodded. “That’s fair,” he agreed.

He helped Sitwell take the trunk off the field and back inside.

**Author's Note:**

> [AO3 Profile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Milesy/profile) | [Tumblr](https://lokiofsassgaard.tumblr.com/) | [Dreamwidth](https://lokiofsassgaard.dreamwidth.org) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/lokiofsassgaard/)


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